Send PDF Files to EverNote

UPDATE: Since releasing version 3.0.0.842 in September 2008, Evernote for Windows now supports import, indexing, and preview of PDF files. The Mac version supported this several months prior. The work-around below is no longer needed (but still fun to try if you want to experiment with and learn more about Ghostscript).

UPDATE 2 (May 2009): A reader pointed out to me that this macro is still useful because, even through Evernote now supports PDFs, it does not support indexing the images inside those PDFs. This has been requested manytimesover in the Evernote forums with no clear delivery date. So, if indexing the images inside your PDFs is important, it may still be worth tinkering with this script.

As I mentioned in my EverNote vs. OneNote post, one of the key weaknesses of EverNote is its inability to handle PDF files. To get around that, I created a script to send the content of PDF files to EverNote as JPEG images. This is in the form of an Outlook VBA macro. I used it to quickly capture hand-written notes scanned into my office copier/scanner. The notes would arrive via email in an attached PDF file.

To use the script, you must set up an Outlook rule to trigger based on the mail address of your copier/scanner. The script then saves the attachment to a folder of your choice (edit path below), then calls Ghostscript to generate a JPEG file for each page. Note that since I already had PDF995 installed, I just used the Ghostscript executables that come bundled with that tool. You can install the PDF995 tool and edit the path in the VBA script below to point to those executables… or you can probably find or compile a standalone version. By the way, PDF995 is an excellent free tool and does a fantastic job distilling content into PDF files.

The last pre-requisite is setting up the auto-import folder in EverNote and enabling it. You can search the EverNote help for instructions on this. Edit the script below to reflect your EverNote auto import folder.

If you don’t want to run this from Outlook, you could just grab certain portions of the script and run them from a DOS batch file or from a hot key. Enjoy!

Hi Alice – I agree completely. This is complicated and awkward. This functionality should be built into EverNote so nobody has to make crazy scripts like this. Ideally, EverNote should handle drag & drop of PDF files as well as auto-import of PDF files. In either case, text in the PDF files should get converted to EverNote’s XML format and pictures would remain as pictures.

Maybe someday (if we’re lucky) the EverNote guys will decide to support PDF

Just a follow-up… A reader pointed out to me that this macro is still useful because, even through Evernote now supports PDFs, it does not support indexing the images inside those PDFs. This has been requested manytimesover in the Evernote forums with no clear delivery date. So, if indexing the images inside your PDFs is important, it may still be worth tinkering with the script above. Good luck.

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